Internal characteristics of magnetic clouds and interplanetary coronal mass ejections

Abstract

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are extremely dynamical and huge events in which the solar plasma, initially contained in closed coronal magnetic field lines, is ejected into interplanetary space. When a CME is detected in-situ by a spacecraft located in the interplanetary medium, it is then termed Interplanetary CME (ICME). A set of signatures in plasma and magnetic field data is used to identify it. Among ICMEs, Magnetic Clouds (MCs) represent a special kind of ICME in which the internal magnetic field configuration resembles that of a flux rope (a twisted helical magnetic filament). Using in-situ data provided by instruments onboard the heliospheric mission Ulysses, 40 magnetic clouds have been identified out of 147 ICMEs in the time period between 1992 and 2002. These events constitute the database for this thesis ...